Preview: Road Rage by Stephen King

Stephen King and his son Joe Hill collaborated for the first time for Throttle, a short story inspired by another classic short story, Duel, by Richard Matheson. Now IDW is publishing a new comic series entitled Road Rage which includes both stories. The series originally began publishing in February of this year and a hardback version of the entire story will be out July 31st.

Issue 1 starts with Throttle, the story of a gang of motorcycle riding outlaws that call themselves ‘The Tribe’. A quick warning: this story is definitely not for children, themes and content make this a mature audiences only book. Fans of Lock & Key will immediately get a similar ethereal feeling from Throttle. As the story starts up ‘The Tribe’ is heading down the highway while attempting to cope a set of unfortunate and unsettling events that have recently taken place. As the story within the present unfolds these recent events are slowly unveiled as well, adding depth and tension to the story.

I have only read the first issue of Throttle thus far and I found it a very engaging if somewhat disturbing read. Any fan of this genre, Stephen King, or Joe Hill will be very pleased with this book, and the fact that you will be able to buy the entirety of both stories in one book makes the deal all the sweater.

This isn’t the type of story I normally read. The writing and art are good enough that I still finished the entire first issue within one quick sitting and if I had access to the rest I probably would have read the entirety of both stories from start to finish right then. I’m giving this book 3.5 stars, but it probably warrants 4-4.5 stars if you are a fan of this type of work.